Alaska voters are facing an election unlike any they’ve seen, with 48 candidates running to succeed Don Young, who held the state’s only U.S. House seat for 49 years.
JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska voters are facing an election unlike any they’ve seen, with 48 candidates running to succeed the man who had held the state’s only U.S. House seat for 49 years.
Max Sumner, a general contractor from Wasilla running for the seat as a Republican, said he’s as serious about his bid “as anyone else that knows they aren’t going to win.” He said he was interested in being part of the “first experiment” under the new elections process and in saying he had run for Congress.
Nearly half the candidates running, 22, are independents. That includes Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who ran for Senate in 2020 with support from the state Democratic party, and a self-described “independent, progressive, democratic socialist” whose legal name is Santa Claus and who serves on the city council for the community of North Pole.
“Alaskans have this propensity to vote for status quo, gauge viability, vote for the devil you know, and I really think under this new system, especially with ranked choice voting, we have an opportunity to change” that dynamic, said Lindsay Kavanaugh, the Alaska Democratic party’s executive director.Revak released a video in which he says he’s “waging a war on Santa” and his “Marxist fantasies.
Around 100,000 ballots already have been returned in what is primarily a by-mail election. That is more than the 88,817 cast in the 2016 regular primary, when turnout was just 17%. It’s anyone’s guess how many of the ballots sent to registered voters will be returned.There are opportunities for in-person or early voting in around 165 communities, many of them rural, where mail service can be spotty.
Bye, who said he quit his job with the military to run, calls himself a “normal dude.” He said he works in retail and as a fishing guide and that Congress needs people like him.
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